


I Woke Up Wanting You

by alessandralee



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Dreams, F/M, Heartbreak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-24
Updated: 2014-06-24
Packaged: 2018-02-05 23:58:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1836886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alessandralee/pseuds/alessandralee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma is haunted by dreams of a Ward that hasn't betrayed them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Woke Up Wanting You

She wakes suddenly, the loud beeping of her alarm clock throwing her from her dream. Her reflexes take care of the snooze button, but her mind needs a minute to catch up to the familiar surroundings.

Her bunk is neat and tidy as always, but it’s a bit of a letdown compared to the opulent hotel room from her dreams. And the warmth of her comforter is a pale comparison to the body she left behind when she woke up.

And that’s the moment she remembers.

It’s juts a dream, a very vivid dream, the latest in a series of the very vivid dreams that she’s been having regularly for the last few months, ever since Ward’s betrayal had been revealed.

When she’s awake, her feelings are locked away behind her anger. He lied to them. He killed Agent Hand and plenty of other SHIELD agents. He had sent Fitz and herself plunging towards almost certain death. He had manipulated them all.

But he had held her hand when she had nightmares. He has whispered sweet words about her bravery to her as he held her close in bed. He had kissed her lips and touched her skin and made her feel like she was on fire in the most pleasant way possible.

And when she was awake, when she was in control of her own thoughts, she could remember that all of that had been a lie. He had never meant a word of it, and that she probably wasn’t the first person he’d said those things to.

But her unconscious mind was almost as much of a traitor as he was. The night after they’d locked him up, it had started turning her memories into dreams. And then it had elaborated on them.

When she slept, their encounters were even hotter than her memories, more intimate than they had a chance to become, and more haunting than she could handle.

And so she woke up multiple times a week, to a sting just as bad as when she first found out, and a traitorous heart that still wanted him around.

What she wanted was to put it behind her, to move on. So she threw herself into work, her own and whatever she and Skye could piece together of Fitz’s. She worked late into the night, only stopping when a concerned teammate forced her to take a break, or it got so late that her vision swam and she couldn’t see the papers in front of her.

But it didn’t help. Her brained still played those pleasant feelings and amped up memories.

So she tried a new technique. She would go to bed relaxed and happy, in a state of calm that couldn’t be pierced by those awful dreams. She stopped going back to the lab after dinner, determined to spend her nights in peace. She brewed herself a calming cup of tea and settled in for some leisurely reading before turning the lights off.

But it was no use.

Then she tried to exhaust herself physically, hoping to force herself into a deep, dreamless sleep. She woke up early to do tai chi with May and Skye. She asked Trip to try and teach her some of the hand-to-hand combat she’d utterly failed in her field test. She’d even run attempted some conditioning with Skye. 

But still the dreams persisted.

So she tortured herself further. She forced herself to relive his betrayal over again. She recounted it to herself, starting with Skye’s message at Providence Base, then moved to her examination of Koenig’s lifeless body and the injuries that could only have been delivered by Ward. She remembers Fitz’s desperate insistence that there was some kind of mistake, and the contrast of the way his face broke as Ward pushed them into the ocean.

She remembered Fitz’s sacrifice, only necessary because of Ward’s actions, and the weight of her friend’s unconscious body and she pulled him through the water, the hushed conversations with his doctor about just what the extent of the damage might be.

She forced herself to list off every awful comment he made to her teammates, everything he had helped Garrett do to Mike Peterson, and the countless deaths they were now attributing to him.

She relived all of that pain, in hope it would finally allow her to be free of him.

But it didn’t.

She still dreams of the kind, loving Ward of her memories. And she still wakes up longing for him in that still hazy place before wakefulness, before she can harden her heart to him.

And now that she’s run out of ways to try and chase him from her mind, there is nothing left for her to do but endure.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for week 5 of Ward x Simmons Summer, for the prompt "morning after." Inspired by a text post on tumblr that read "you were in my dream again, I woke up sad and wanting you."


End file.
